There are obligations we have to other people that we can't (usually) make excuses to get out of. And then there are obligations we impose upon ourselves. Those are the ones where we really get creative.
For example, you impose an obligation upon yourself to go for a 10 minute walk every morning before breakfast. The first few days, you get up before sunrise, throw on your clothes and walk briskly around your neighborhood, reveling in the sensation of being up before almost everyone else, nodding and smiling to the few other brave souls you pass by who are doing the same, and getting home to a well-deserved breakfast and coffee, prepared by your spouse, who is still yawning and scratching and obviously just got out of your warm bed about five minutes ago.
Yes ... you are on track!
But then, one morning, you wake up, and ... it's cloudy outside. And cold -- brrr! can't be more than 50 degrees out there. You shiver and pull on your warmest clothes, determined to follow through on your self-imposed obligation. You open the front door and - yikes! what's that? There's WATER falling from the sky! Rain? In September? No way, man! This is definitely NOT a good day to walk - after all, you don't have the proper footwear. What if you slipped in an oily puddle and injured yourself? Then you'd never be able to walk again!
No - best to give yourself the day off. After all, it'll stop raining tomorrow, and then you can just pick right up where you left off.
So tomorrow comes, and the rain has come and gone, leaving a bright, sunlit, cleanly washed world, right outside your door, ready to be explored. And you want to - you really want to do your walk. But - it rained all day yesterday, and the newspaper was late (yes, you still subscribe to a print newspaper, because you're so much smarter and better than all those other people who are addicted to the computer - boy, are they going to envy you when The Pulse* hits and you're the only one who knows what's going on), and anyway, the newspaper was delivered late and the elderly ladies who drive their Porsche around the neighborhood at about three miles per hour tossing newspapers out of their window (they're on a fixed income, poor dears, so every little bit helps) managed to toss yours into one of those puddles you were so worried about, so you never got to do the crossword puzzle.
And it's really important for you to do that puzzle every day, because as your old grandpa used to say, "A puzzle a day keeps senility away," and you can hear him now, sharp as a tack at 95 years young, still doing his daily crossword puzzle and smoking that pipe, and you're really proud of yourself that you at least resisted following THAT example, because even though you love the smell of an old-fashioned tobacco pipe, you know enough about smoking to know that Grandpa was definitely one of the those "exceptions that prove the rule" and generally smoking is a bad idea. So no smoking for you. But that daily puzzle idea seems to be a good one, and you do your best to stick with it.
But yesterday you couldn't do your puzzle OR do your walk, and you feel kind of off balance, so you know that you are going to have to do at least ONE of those things, because after all, you imposed these obligations upon yourself and no one is going to let you off the hook except you. So you decide to do the puzzle, because your knee feels a little stiff, probably because of the rain, and you suddenly remember how Grandpa's "trick knee" used to "act up" when it was rainy, so you figure even though the rain seems to have stopped for now, there's probably still a ton of humidity in the air, and you certainly don't want to go out walking and get stuck in a sudden downpour, right? So the puzzle it is.
And then you remember how your Grandpa also wrote poetry, silly, rhyming poetry that made Edgar Guest sound like Shakespeare, but he seemed to enjoy it, and you realize that it isn't enough just to do puzzles; no, you need to keep your mind active by writing poetry, just like good ol' Gramps. So you get on the computer (because you do have one, even though you look down on everyone else who does) and find this online website called "Poetry Soup", and sign up for it, and impose an obligation upon yourself to write a poem every day, and man, won't THAT keep the senility away?
(to be continued!)
*aka "electromagnetic pulse", a weapon which will take out all forms of electronic communication, really messing up your commute.